Business Process Redesign Update

Here is the update for BPR for this week, our apologies for being a few days behind with getting this to you.

What’s happenin’:

Based upon the Statewide Planning recommendations, we have a lot of work to complete prior to Ketchikan going live. We have revised the go-live date to ensure all of the pieces are in the appropriate places so Ketchikan will be successful with their implementation of the new processes. The go-live for Ketchikan is tentatively scheduled for April 4th.

Last week the “Consistency Tools” were created by a smaller workgroup of staff who attended the two-week Statewide Planning sessions. The goal was to create documents that all staff will use when processing eligibility tasks. Here is what we know about the Consistency tools created last week:

1. Documentation templates were created specifically for the CANO requirements in each triage track. CANOs will be more concise, less free-form, and will require the necessary documentation, no more, no less.
2. Interview scripts (3): The workgroup focused on “honing in on” the questions that need to be asked for the type of interview being conducted. These scripts are being tested week in many of the field office, and improvements will be made prior to the implementation in Ketchikan.
3. Verification matrixes (4)- Cash, food, and medical programs all have verification requirements. While some of these overlap, there remain specific verifications required for a determination. Verification tools for specific triage tracks will help workers, even experienced workers, confirm the information required, as well as the acceptable sources of this information.
4. The “How We” guide (a new process handbook for DPA) is in first draft form. More detail is being added to provide clear instructions to workers on lobby flow, non-lobby work, phone traffic, data entry into pathos, etc. Please note: “How We” guide is replacing the SPMG. The staff in the Statewide Design Team brainstormed names and then voted on their favorite. “How we” refers to how we get the work done. This guide will be concise and simple for staff to utilize (do I hear a resounding YEAH!?).

It has been reported to us that our Consistency Team was on task and really produced more than what was expected within the 3 ½ days of work—they were simply the best C!A has ever worked with nationwide! They hit this out of the park!

What’s comin’ next you ask?

Next week the consistency tools will be given to Policy, Quality Assurance, Staff Development and Training, and SysOps. The reasons for these sections to look at them is to ensure we aren’t missing any critical pieces that could negatively impact their work or cause rework for us down the road. For example: CANO's weren't being completed diligently enough so staff needed to print.
documents/interfaces so with the new consistency tools this should eliminate the need for printing documents. In addition, the tools are designed to eliminate the free form text by having drop down or radial dial to care for consistency, time with less narrative being written, and providing more specific information into a format that can be easily copied and pasted into the system.

Ketchikan go-live has been delayed, but not through any fault of the staff in Ketchikan! We need to get the data, training, consistency tools, and complete our analysis of the data to formulate a backlog plan. We are slowing down to increase the success of the Ketchikan implementation. The processes for the other offices will be smoother and quicker after we learn what we missed from Ketchikan (and we most likely will miss something).

Looking ahead:

Important for staff to be patient- We have heard from some of you who want to start initiating processes now…please wait so the BPR processes will be fully supported by everyone in the office.

During the next five months things might get a bit confusing since some sites will be rolling out new tools and other are not. Please keep this in perspective. We want to ensure that each of the seven sites have the necessary tools/resources in place to be successful. Therefore, as soon as the sites go through the site specific planning sessions- consistency tools, PathOs training, workload analysis, training opportunities for experienced staff and new hires, local planning session (readiness checklist), training managers and leadership, training on the How We guide, etc., they can start the new processes.

We need to ensure each site has leadership support by training the leadership team on how use the tools, understanding the expectation of their positions and how the duties they perform has changed focus, and understanding why they are responsible for performing the work.

As a state, we will be standing in both worlds initially since we aren't able to share the work statewide. What this means is that as sites begin implementing the consistency tools, PathOs, One and Done philosophy, and all staff working all programs in both systems, we will have other sites that are in the “legacy” world doing work the old way. However, the roll-out of another site will occur about every two to three weeks so by the end of July all seven sites will be in the brave new world. We have not forgotten about the smaller sites that don’t have an implementation plan, we will be focusing our attention on you a little later in this process, so please be patient.

The next update will provide more information pertaining to training, the schedule for the other sites to implement BPR, and information on the Statewide Planning team renaming of other terms so we all will be speaking the same language. Stay tuned!!